Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Marco Rubio, world class level of whining.

Listening to Senator Rubio talk, I can't help but notice that he is using a whining voice that turns up when he wants to sound upset.  He keeps touching his face, too -- that is odd.  He even stopped to reach down and grab a bottle of water.  He's not ready for prime time speaking to a camera, apparently.

And whoa, the lies.

He said that GDP shrank the last 3 months; not true at all.  As the BEA report showed, in the last quarter GDP grew, just not as fast as inflation.  And other economic indicators point to an upward adjustment to a positive GDP number.

So of course, when he says that we need to grow the economy by cutting deficits and spending, how exactly do you reconcile total GDP = private GDP + public GDP?  Either you cut public spending and therefore cut public contribution to total GDP, or you don't; it's not that complicated.  To wit: the last quarter BEA release highlighted this very fact, where government defense spending was the primary reason why GDP was lower!

He talks about changing education but not spending more money; yet he doesn't explain how he'd pay for those changes -- sounds familiar (Bush's education reforms endorsed by Republicans).

He mentioned that energy independence would help the economy and bring back jobs from China.  That's one hell of a whopper, I gotta say.  Energy independence hasn't positively affected gasoline prices one bit, as most drivers in the US should be able to discern this week.  Jobs back from China?  If jobs come back from China, they're low-wage manufacturing, not high-paying wages.  I mean really, he talked about a skills mismatch earlier, only to come back to the idea of bringing back those exported jobs!  Make up your mind, Marco!

Marco Rubio was 90% negative / 10% positive.   President Obama was the opposite, but more importantly, his message carried emotional force and determinism.

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